A computing device can pair with another device to coordinate and share resources between them. Specifically with “peering” of clusters, conventionally, one cluster can create data protection mirroring relationships with another and can manage jobs on the peered cluster based on this relationship.
Prior techniques for cluster peering involve very few authentication techniques to make sure that data being shared is protected. For example, customer data backups at a remote location using peered clusters are usually protected from third-party hacks or dictionary attacks as customers build isolated networks used over virtual private networks (VPN) to protect their data from external attacks. However, conventional approaches provide little protection from attacks within the same data network once the data clusters are paired. A third party attacker who can see communication going across different clusters could impersonate a “peered” cluster in order to copy internal data.
Examples described herein aim to provide an authentication scheme interweaving the processing of two different authentication protocols in order to not only authenticate the pairing of two devices using a shared passphrase, but also provide a shared secret code that can be used for future communication. In the example system described herein, authentication can be achieved through minimal message exchanges between the two devices, as the passphrase and the secret code are not communicated directly from one device to another. A robust authentication system is especially important for cluster peering, where data protection schemes are more vulnerable than the data exchange during the pairing between mobile devices and/or peripherals. Cluster peer authentication is used to allow some assurance that control flow and data that are being exchanged with another cluster are in fact being exchanged with that cluster.